Orchid 201

May 2, 2018

I think I have FINALLY figured out my Orchid!

So, a little back story. Whenever my husband buys my flowers, it's usually something I have to keep alive. I do well with my garden outside, but not particularly all that well with indoor flowers, that most likely need to be repotted if they are going to survive a tiny bit longer than a week...Anyway, in March or April of 2014 (I can't believe it's been four years!), Scott bought me an orchid. I've almost killed it at least twice, but I have always managed to bring it back to life. I've repotted it at least 3 times and have never seen in rebloom.

But guess what? It's still alive!! Thriving actually. It recently grew a new leaf and another one is growing! It is also growing a lot of new roots that are trying to grow through the pot...literally. I'm crossing my fingers that it will produce a shoot this fall so we can see some flowers. (I honestly don't even remember what color they are. I think maybe yellow/purple?) You can check out Orchid 101 here and see what this baby looked like back in February of 2015. (Took me long enough to figure it our, right?!)

Since this orchid of mine is growing and doing so well, I did some googling. According to Google, Orchids go through their growing season in the spring/summer and then after the main growing season will hopefully produce a shoot! Though, I don't know how this will work since they typically grow new shoots from old ones and mine hasn't bloomed since I got it...I guess we will see!

Here are the tricks that are currently working for me:

Adequate Light Source (not too much and not too little):
Orchids are fickle. Seriously... when I first almost killed my orchid, it was because it was getting WAY too much sun and the leaves were burning. (I also may have been over watering..) 

My orchid currently resides on my front room windowsill, facing east. Our window also has a shade screen on it, which helps with Arizona's bright and very hot sunshine. It resides here indefinitely, unless it's in the kitchen after getting watered. This is perfect for my orchid. Morning sun and then bright light the rest of the day.

Watering:
Too much water and it will rot and die. Too little water and it will shrivel up and die. Another happy medium! I water my orchid every Saturday, or once a week. I let the water run for at least 15-30 seconds on each side, making sure the planting medium is nice and wet. I also let the water run over any exposed roots. Don't forget to dump out any excess water! And don't get any water in the center of the leaves! If you do, use a paper towel to get it out.

Pot/Container:
Orchids need a lot of airflow, so you need a pot with holes. They also have plastic containers that you can put your orchid in and then place that in a decorative pot that doesn't have holes. The nice thing about that, is you can change out your pots/container as often as you'd like and it may be easier for future repotting.

My pot has holes and with how my orchid is growing, I may need to break the pot whenever I have to move it to a different one! (Some roots are growing out of the holes!) We will cross that bridge whenever we get there.


Planting Medium:
This may determine how often you water your orchid. My orchid is in this Special Orchid Planting Mix that I found on Amazon. I just repotted my orchid in March, so in a month and a half, it has already grown multiple new roots and new leaves. So, I am going to say this stuff must really be special! The bark is a lot bigger than I was expecting, but it works perfect! And it's growing, so we must be doing something right.

Sheesh! So much work for a silly little plant! But I love them. They are so pretty when they bloom! And I am determined to get mine to bloom again. I've had it for 4 years, so I'm committed. If you have any orchid tricks, please, let me know! I could use a little help!

May 10, 2018

Happy planting! Cheers!